Suborior
by trufflemores
Summary: A sequel to my Barry-is-awake-during-the-coma fic, "Tempor." The first twelve hours after he wakes up are the hardest.


**Author's Notes: This fic is a sequel to _Tempor_. While possible to read apart, I would recommend reading "Tempor" first.**

 **Suborior means to reappear, revive, rise.**

 **FORMAT: DAY:HOUR:MIN, e.g. 01:10:45 1 day, 10 hours, 45 minutes. Enjoy!**

00:00:25.

 _What's happening to me?_

00:00:41.

 _Everything has a color, a texture, a depth that I am no longer used to. Even gravity has a weight. The precinct is loud, my clothes are loud, sunshine is louder still._

 _Perhaps most and least pressing, the world is slowing down, too._

 _What's happening to me?_

00:00:48.

 _Imagine carrying a heavy backpack your entire life._

 _From the moment you are born to this very second, it has always been there. You have never taken it off. With rare exception, you've never even noticed that it was there._

 _Then one day the straps are cut and the backpack falls from your shoulders._

 _You reach for it because it's in your bones to carry it, but then – then you stop yourself. Heart pounding, you dare to ask, What would happen if I walked away?_

 _You straighten and haltingly take a few steps. But it comes naturally to you, because there is nothing holding you down, and you pause. You look out at the world laid before you. You take a deep breath – and then you take off._

 _And suddenly you realize you were born to_ run.

00:01:22.

 _Is spandex an emotion? Either way, I'm feelin' it._

00:01:24.

 _Hi, Star Wars Guy. I like your shirt. I can't stand the suit._

 _Clothes are loud. Spandex is a bullhorn._

00:01:26.

 _Hi, Star Wars Guy Friend. You look sad. What's wrong?_

00:01:35.

 _This is insane. Are we really doing this? All right. If I insist. Say nice things about me if I spontaneously combust._

00:01:37.

 _This is_ awesome.

00:02:05.

 _Ow._

 _Ugh._

 _Ow._

 _HNNNhg._

 _I'm listening. I'm listening._

 _Hahhhhhhh._

 _I'm here, I'm here, yeah-yeah-yeah, I'm here. I hear you. I can speak back. See? Words are great!_

 _Whoa hey what're maybe we shouldn't touch it naGH FUCK!_

00:02:19.

 _Painkillers, I moan, and no one obliges. Please_.

00:03:08.

 _It's been almost two hours and we ran out of Tylenol forty-eight minutes ago._

 _At first we tried one. Then two. Shaking them out like tic-tacs, three or more at a time, I tried until I was holding an empty bottle on an aching, empty stomach._

 _Then I dry-heaved into a sterile chrome trash bin for what felt like days._

 _We vow to never try Tylenol again._

00:03:17.

 _Fun fact: anatomically modern humans evolved two million years ago. Up until the past two centuries, analgesics were limited to herbs and on-off home remedies._

 _Given that our ancestors also regularly encountered giant sloths and saber-toothed cats, they must have had a pretty solid market for the stuff._

 _I'd kill for some Neanderthal vidocin right about now._

00:03:19.

 _I find a forgotten stash of motrin and fuck consequences. My wrist is made of goddamn splinters._

 _More dry-heaving. Caitlin – "Dr. Snow" – scowls at me – she's already perfected her, "BARRY" look – but she doesn't yell. That part's nice._

 _The whole stomach cramping thing? Not so nice._

00:03:21.

 _Star Wars Guy – Cisco, Cisco, his name is Cisco – brings me a red lollipop._

 _"You should probably eat something," he says._

 _"Ha-ha, that's a great idea, and would be totally awesome, except my stomach is trying to actively escape my body," I don't laugh back, taking the lollipop because its taste is stronger than the acid burn in the back of my throat._

00:03:22.

 _The first food I eat in nine months is pure sugar._

 _It is powerful, punch-you-in-the-stomach strong._

 _"Cherry" becomes my most and least favorite flavor in the same second._

00:03:31.

 _I know I shouldn't make a fuss because these people saved my life, but my wrist is killing me and it's starting to feel a little too much like a moratorium in here and maybe, just maybe, we could go outside instead._

 _"I'm down," Cisco agrees at once, pushing back his spinny chair and_ how _is this_ normal? _It feels like a dream, like colors standing up and walking around, unattached._

 _We chance a collective look out the windows. Sunny skies shine invitingly back at us. It's not clear that it's going to start raining soon, but I can feel it in my bones. I don't bring up the delusional prophecy because outside is fresh air, and both Cisco and I agree that it's sorely needed after twohundredandseventyeightdays indoors. "Nine months," Dr. Wells astutely summarizes, like it's sterile, and perfectly reasonable._

 _It's not._

 _Still: we get the hall pass. Score._

00:03:52.

 _Cisco and I sit out on the grass playing with his "crickets," baby Roombas that fetch small objects from underneath desks and other hard-to-reach places. "I'm not sure what other contexts they'll be useful in," Cisco admits, "but I kind of love em." They're chasing ping pong balls into an open box tipped on its side like tiny cattle wranglers. I kind of love em, too._

 _It's nice, distracting, right up until one bumps against my foot. It's just a tiny contact, and it doesn't mean anything. But my overactive, overwrought, under-thinking brain bursts into metaphorical tears._

 _A mercifully ambiguous noise comes out of my throat._

 _Cisco doesn't ask._

 _Good man._

00:04:14.

 _"It's healed. In three hours."_

 _That tight-chest this-can't-be-happening feeling is back._

00:07:22.

 _I'm awake and alive and a stranger who got caught in the crossfire_ isn't _._

 _Starling City is the last place that still exists Before, that hasn't woken up with me and the coma._

 _I run because I have nowhere else to go._

00:09:54.

 _I have a lot of things I want to say._

 _"I didn't want to be chosen, Ollie."_

 _"Why do you look older, Ollie?"_

 _"I didn't mean to fall asleep for nine months, Ollie."_

 _"I don't know if any of this is real, Ollie."_

 _Instead, I say, "Something happened."_

 _And Oliver looks at me with that, "Okay. Tell me more." Look._

 _I tell him everything, and somehow none of it truly matters._

 _"I – became the impossible," I finish. It doesn't sound real, even to me._

 _But Ollie, Ollie makes it feel real, because he_ believes _._

 _I needed you, Ollie._

 _I still do._

 _"Saving people. In a flash."_

 _Thunder crackles deep in my soul and it has nothing to do with Awake or Alive or Anything._

Flash.

00:11:47.

 _My hands are numb with how tired I am._

 _It's ringing in my ears. Clyde Mardon is dead. Fred Chyre is dead, too, but to the rest of the world he's been dead for nine months, and I've been dead for nine months, and why did I get to wake up?_

 _A man is dead because of me. I didn't do it. Aided-and-abetted. But it wasn't a crime. Right? It was self-defense. He was going to kill you. Joe had to do it. He did the right thing. Thank-you-Joe._

 _I still can't get up from my knees, and Joe joins me, and it hits me with sudden clarity that_ I'm not wearing the mask.

 _"Joe," I try, tired and torn._

 _He drags me into a hug. I reach up with a shaking hand to fist the back of his jacket and sob against his shoulder._

 _"It's okay, son," he says._ "I've got you. It's okay.

"You're okay," he insists, as Barry gasps and crushes the fabric between his fingers. "You're okay. I'm here."

Barry presses his forehead against Joe's shoulder tightly, like he can somehow be swallowed into the comforting embrace, as if Joe could bear the weight of two people.

 _I don't know what that means anymore_ , Barry thinks.

But once the emotions dull to a tolerable ache, he squeezes Joe's shoulder hard.

 _But I'm willing to find out._


End file.
